Abi:Feeling kind of funny… feeling kind of sad.[27/30]

I’m unmotivated and kind of (due to selfish issues) rushed today, so I figured that I would just do the obvious topic today of: birthdays.

I really I think I missed out on the whole hoopla (yes, I used that word) of birthdays. When my first daughter was on the verge of turning one I got a shocked treatment from my future mum-in-law because I hadn’t planned on throwing her a party. Apparently I am robbing the one-year old of some amazing thing that no child should be without (oh, really? I’ll get to that in a moment).
So my mum-in-law insisted we come down, and do a little party at her house. It’s not like there is a whole load of people to invite, and I didn’t know but one other mum, and she didn’t even have custody of her children at the time… so who would I invite? It would just be family.. but for a one year old’s party? Who will not remember a damned thing about it… and who will only be interested in the cake, balloons, and wrapping paper and care less about anything else…
I guess the idea is completely lost on me…
Mind you now that my oldest is getting, well, older, I am very interested in making her birthday special, but parties are still a little weird for me.

I only ever remember having one birthday party, and it was when we lived in Satellite Beach (or I think it was there)… I want to say it was my 2nd birthday, but it’s hard to think I can recall something that old, so I will not say for sure… and as far as I know it might not have been MY birthday party… this is, however, the only thing I can recall for this topic. I have this insistence urge to say my Uncle Scott gave us tickets to the circus for my birthday, but I really don’t know for sure.

Chances are I could have had a party at some point… I think I ended up at Disney for my birthday once, and had breakfast with Snow White, the others, and maybe Mickey was there (who I think I disliked greatly), but I only recall this as being retold to me and cannot remember actually being there. (I think Amanda mentioned a picture of this day in an earlier post, actually).

The thing in our house was when your birthday came around, you picked the dinner… though that didn’t always mean you’d get it. That’s what I remember for a birthday tradition.

I remember once that my sister, I think for her 16th birthday, ended up having a party in the local park (to which I was NOT invited to, as crushed as I was). I remember she came home with a load of gifts and had enjoyed herself…
I remember being SO incredibly jealous, because I didn’t get a birthday party or loads of gifts that year, or the year before, or the year before that (and so forth). I think she’d planned it, and convinced mum (and maybe dad, I can’t recall if this was before or after he passed) to go along with it… but I still felt cheated… Mostly because I always felt that if I tried to initiate something that I would get shot down, and I just gave up trying to force people into doing things I wanted… because if they didn’t want to do something for me I didn’t want to demand it of them.
It was just one more thing to add to the ever growing list of why I always felt my sister was the favourited of us.

This year I erased my birthday from Facebook, and hid it on Livejournal, because I’m sick of it all. I see all these people having parties (and baby showers, that’s a sore spot, too), and I’ve not gotten to truly experience these things before.
This day is usually a bitter day… I end up at home ALONE (John’s working, again, I think this is the 4th year in a row… or more), no social interactions, usually cleaning (well, I clean daily, so that’s not a valid thing to point out)…  I don’t even get cake (even when I insist I should, but it just never works out in my regard, last two year it was budget issues). I rarely get presents, maybe one a year (this year it was Arsh, with an EPIC pony she drew of me with the cutest little cutie mark ever!)… and I get cards only from my mum and  sister, and my Nana…

I’m always left wondering, what’s so damned special about today? I’m just getting older… and not many people seem interested in anything more than saying Happy Birthday to me on some piffling social network, which seems more out of tradition than heart-felt by some of these people (which I could be wrong, but if you only speak to me a few times a year, and one of those is to say Happy Birthday, then you’ve not convinced me otherwise yet).
Why should I even recognise this day as anything other than another day, let alone insist other people recognise it by showering me with blessings, love, gifts or whatever (that they would be unwilling to do any other time of the year, save for maybe Christmastime)?
Really? What is the point of even using this day for anything more than legal mumbo-jumbo?

On a better, more positive note: A HUGE thank you to Arsh and the super lovely pony art! How tempted I am to have that cutie mark tattooed on me! It’s just so fantabulous! Thank you.